NAIROBI (Reuters) - Clinging to the under-belly of a baboon,
Gakii, a 3-month-old orphaned bush baby has plumped for an unlikely
surrogate-mother.

In the grounds of the Nairobi Animal
Orphanage, the duo cavort around in each others' arms, drink milk
out of the same bowl and poke mischievously at a Reuters television
camera.

"This is not normal. It has not happened here and
I guess it has not happened anywhere else," said Edward Kariuki, a
warden at the animal home in the Kenyan capital.

Kenya,
however, has a history of unlikely cases of fostering among orphaned
animals.

In 2004, a giant tortoise adopted and became an
inseparable friend to a baby hippo washed out to sea off the coast
of Kenya in the aftermath of the southeast Asia Tsunami. The pair
became an Internet sensation.

Two years earlier, a full-grown
lioness baffled experts in the east African country when she adopted
a baby oryx -- a kind of antelope normally deemed a tasty morsel by
the predators. (Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Richard Lough)